Mentalist Episode Tag: Nothing Gold Can Stay, 7x10
by Donnamour1969
Summary: Episode tag and hopeful speculation for the future. Lisbon deals with Jane's decision at the end of the episode. Spoilers, 7x10. Angst/Romance. Rated T for mild language and adult themes.


A/N: This episode made me very angry with Jane on Lisbon's behalf. His actions strike me as very selfish, and my sympathy for his past is wearing thin. He needs to move on. He needs to grow up, in my opinion. So yes, part of this comes from anger, but it also comes from a desire for Jane to be the man we all know he is capable of. I hope you like what I've done here.

**Episode Tag: Nothing Gold Can Stay, 7x10**

Lisbon cried alone in the cemetery for about an hour. Got it all out. Her grief for the loss of Vega's young life. Her grief for her team and their sadness. Her grief that in the midst of hard times, Jane had left her. Again.

She gave herself that hour, but then she got up from her place beneath the tree where Jane had left her and stood tall as she walked back to her car. She skipped right over Denial and jumped headlong into Anger. Despite his love for her, despite his claims that he wasn't going anywhere, he had gone anyway. And she would be left once again to deal with the aftermath of a disaster without Jane.

She found the remains of her team at the bar near their FBI office, shared a whiskey with a stoic Cho, hugged a weepy Wylie, and shook her head at Abbot when he asked after Jane. Her boss didn't ask for additional details. He only needed to look at her face to guess with some accuracy what had happened.

"He'll come back," stated Abbot.

In her anger, she almost bit out that she didn't care.

On the second day with no word, and in a moment of weakness, she went by Jane's campsite by the lake. The Airstream was gone. She tried to let her anger comfort her, but she broke down in her car and bawled like a baby. Then she stopped by the liquor store on her way home.

On the third day, she received a text.

_I'm okay._

She looked at the two words on her phone screen for about ten minutes, an emotional hurricane roaring through her head, spinning up every possible response she could think of. She decided on the truth.

_I'm not._

Predictably, his next text was: _I'm sorry._

To that, she didn't respond at all.

At home that night she poured her scotch and tried to fathom how she was going to survive this particular separation. Before, she had been heartbroken, had missed him intensely. She'd been angry too, but nothing compared to how she felt now; now that she knew what it felt like to kiss him, to feel him lose sweet control in her arms. Heartbreak didn't even begin to cover it now. Was there a word that combined devastation with absolute fury? She'd have to look it up. Maybe something German. They seemed to have a real knack for naming indescribable emotions.

The sound of the key in her lock made her jump a little, the whiskey agitating in her glass. She was sitting on her living room couch in the dark. It had been light when she'd first sat down, and she hadn't had the motivation to turn on a lamp when the sun no longer peeked beneath the closed blinds. Her heart squeezed at the now familiar sound of his removing his key, shutting the door gently behind him, turning the dead bolt; but the rest of her body braced for a fight.

"Lisbon?" he called.

She didn't answer, childishly wanting him to seek her out.

The sudden click of a switch filled the room with harsh light. She squinted, then took a drink. It was only her first sip, but she was petty enough to want him to worry a little bit about her state of mind.

He took in the entire scene in one glance; didn't like what he saw.

"Teresa," he began tentatively, still standing two yards away. "I'm—"

"Don't apologize. You needed to get away. I get it."

But he wasn't fooled by her words. They rang of forgiveness, but there was no heart behind them.

He joined her on the couch, but he may as well have been miles away, given her cool reception.

"I went to Galveston," he told her, though she hadn't asked.

"That's nice. I know how much you like the beach."

"Teresa—"

"I'm really surprised you're back, actually," she said, swirling her liquor idly, watching the amber color. She remembered she'd once wanted her hair just that color.

He sighed, looking down, resting his elbows on his knees and putting his face in his hands.

"I was afraid you'd think that."

"And yet, you did it anyway."

"It's like I told you. I can't do this anymore—worry about you, see people I care about die. I had to get away. Clear my thoughts."

"For one moment, did you think about _my_ thoughts?" She set down her glass on the coffee table. "Well let me tell you something, Jane, _I_ can't do this anymore. You've left me now—_three_ times. Four, if you count that time you went after Red John and abandoned me on top of a cliff. Each time, I never expected to see you again."

"Lisbon—"

But she was just getting wound up. She got to her feet and held up a hand to silence him.

"I know I have no room to judge, believe me. I am by nature a runner too, when things get too hard. I ran away from the responsibility of my brothers. I ran away from two stable men who loved me and had offered me the world. But I thought things were different now, for both of us. I thought we—"and her throat suddenly clogged with emotion—"that we loved each other, that we had committed to each other. But I should have known when you said we didn't have to make a plan…"

Jane couldn't let that one pass. "I do love you. Don't you understand? That's what makes this so difficult. I can't bear to lose you."

"And I can't bear to lose you either, you idiot! But tell me, why is your pain more important than mine? I've lost people too, remember? Both my parents while I was a teenager. Hell, I've even lost a friend to Red John. And while I would give anything in the world for you to have Angela and Charlotte back, you have to stop acting like you are the only one who has ever grieved, the only one who feels loss."

Her words were harsh, she knew, but she also knew that if they had a prayer of making this work, he had to crawl out of his own skin and start seeing what was around him. It pained her to watch his eyes glistening at her speech, so she sighed and sat beside him once more. Closer this time.

She reached for his cool hands, took them in hers, placed them on her own chest and held them there. She met his eyes, and she knew he must be feeling the rapid pounding of her heart beneath his hands.

"Look at _me_, Jane. Feel _me_. I'm right here. I'm _breathing_. I'm _alive._ Live for _me,_ not for your past. Not for your fear."

He was shocked into silence, had forgotten how angry he had the power to make her. This was about as frustrated as he'd ever seen her, and he felt the panic rising in him, felt her beginning to slip from his grasp. He really _could_ lose her, and not just to a perp's bullet.

But she wasn't through.

"…and dammit, it's time for us both to grow up and start making a plan. I can't live this way anymore, either. I know I agreed to just go with what _feels right_, or whatever you said months ago. At that moment, things were so new between us, I would have said anything to keep you from leaving, or giving up on us. Now, I realize that I need the reassurance of an actual, concrete commitment from you. It's unfair to leave me in constant doubt that one day you'll just be gone again without a word, don't you understand that?"

She dropped his hands and dashed away her sudden tears with trembling fingers.

His face remained solemn as he watched her.

"I understand what you're saying," he said slowly, as if he was carefully considering each word he uttered. "I just don't know what in the hell to say to you right now. I love you? I'm sorry for leaving? I'll try harder to—"

"I need more than just your _word_, Jane."

He was quiet, watching her closely, trying to find a way to focus on his own fears again. It was more comfortable that way.

"But what about your work, Teresa? That's the main reason I left, remember? How am I supposed to live if I'm constantly worrying whether you'll come home alive that day?"

"Here's how you live: you _allow _yourself to live. I'm not quitting my job, Jane. As much as I love you, I would just come to resent you if I quit; I know myself well enough to understand that. What's more, I think you understand that too. Honestly, I think my quitting is just another way for you to avoid facing your fears. Well, I'm through running, Jane. I had hoped that you were too."

She got up then, walked past him toward the bedroom, leaving him alone on her couch, eyeing her full glass of scotch speculatively. He looked back toward the hallway where she'd disappeared, imagined what his life would have been like if she had really left him for Marcus Pike, or if she hadn't quit her job in Washington to move to Texas to work with him.

As far as sacrifices went, she was the clear winner. She had always borne the brunt of all his idiocy, forgiven him all his trespasses against her, followed him wherever he had led, down dangerous paths, both physical and emotional. She had stood by him, had come back for him. Defended his actions, put her life and her job on the line for him countless times.

So what had he done for _her_ lately?

Marcus Pike's words came back to him. _What can you offer her, besides Patrick Jane?_

He didn't know the answer to that, even now, but he knew one thing above all others. Above all his fears and insecurities, he loved her with all of his heart. He had told her once he only wanted her happiness. Had that been a lie? Could he at least try to live up to that statement, go back to that place when he was only thinking of her?

He had always been selfish and single-minded in his desires, but he knew she was right. It was time he behaved like a grownup, at least for her sake. Time he quit living in a motor home, a vehicle that offered an easy means of escape. Time he stopped using his fears as an excuse for not giving himself to her completely.

He got up from Lisbon's couch and followed her into the bedroom.

The light was off in there too, and he could hear her soft sniffles that she was trying to stifle against the pillow. He sat on the corner of the bed.

"You know, leaving the room in the middle of an argument could technically be classified as running away too."

"Go to hell, Jane," came her muffled voice. "I was trying to avoid punching you in the goddamn nose."

He smiled. He couldn't help it when she was so adorable in her anger.

"I really was going to come back," he said, reaching out a tentative hand to rest on her lower back.

"I didn't know that," she said.

"So you said."

He was quiet, and she allowed him to rub her back in soothing circles, but she still felt stiff as a board beneath his hand.

With a sigh, he felt his ring in the darkness. Without looking at it, he knew every scratch and worn curve, remembered in vivid detail when Angela had put it on his finger.

His favorite Robert Frost poem came to mind, reminding him of young Vega, who had been the perfect hue of green. New. Innocent. In the flower of her youth. Taken long before her time. Just like Angela. Just like Charlotte.

_So dawn goes down to day_

_Nothing gold can stay_

The time we are given on this earth is ephemeral, whether one believes in an afterlife or not, Jane thought. Loss of his family should have taught him this lesson, should have been a warning that he should stop wasting valuable time living in fear and embrace and cherish what was good in his life. Accept with gratitude the incredible gift that was Lisbon's love. Accept that change wasn't necessarily something to be feared.

Sometimes after a fall from grace, an even richer existence can emerge.

Jane slipped off his ring and set it on the nightstand. The soft clatter of the circular golden metal was unmistakable.

Lisbon lifted her head.

"Jane?" she whispered hoarsely. She knew the only thing in the room that could have made that distinctive sound.

He slipped off his shoes and climbed onto the bed to lie beside her. He touched her cheek, felt the moisture there and brushed at a stray tear with his thumb.

She found his left hand, her fingers brushing over his empty ring finger, confirming her suspicions. He pressed his lips to hers and she welcomed him back into her arms.

"Is that concrete enough for you?" he whispered.

"It's a start," she said, and he kissed her smiling mouth.

**A/N: I hope the removal of the ring comes very soon. It's way past time. Thank you for reading I promise to update "Precious Days" soon.**


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